


Internal Recallibration

by Cimila



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Amnesia, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, M/M, Mental Instability, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier, mentioned Steve/Nat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 06:36:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3926548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cimila/pseuds/Cimila
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Imagine Steve is the Winter Soldier and Bucky is Captain America</p>
            </blockquote>





	Internal Recallibration

When he woke up from the ice (and wasn’t that a fucking trip, what the fuck did Zola do to him in that lab that he was able to wake up from that?) they told him he needed to step up to the plate; put on a mask for the good of America.

Apparently  _‘get fucked’_  isn’t an appropriate answer, but it’s the one he gave them until some fucking  _demi-god_  started ripping god damned  _eyeballs_  right out of peoples heads.

So he shrugs into the new uniform they give him, and he spends most of the time in between battles holding Steves shield. He’d been holding it when Steve had been shot out of the train, flung it to the ground as he’d reached for Steve; the shield was all that was left of Steve. And if Steve had been holding it, he’d have survived, and they would have finished the war properly. Together.

He swore it was a one time deal, to defend from Manhattan from aliens (and Bucky really wants to know what the hell is wrong with the future that they’ve got alien invasions but no proper  _Marooned off Vesta_  spaceships or real robots) but each time they called him in they labelled it a ‘crisis.’ And he couldn’t say no without knowing what he was turning down, and when he saw what was at stake, he’d grab Steves shield and help out. Life inside the cowl, behind the shield, became easier for Bucky than living as himself.

After all, reprints of faded photos, memories and nightmares are all he has left of Steve as Bucky. As Captain America, sometimes he can imagine it’s Steve throwing the shield, that Steve’s alive and not entombed in snow and ice at the bottom of a mountain.

Bucky can’t believe that it’s been seventy years and they haven’t found his body, that he has to mourn at an empty grave.

(He finds out why, when the mask is ripped off the hauntingly familiar assassin; when Steve hesitates in killing him, because he’s  _alive_.

He’s  _alive_  and in  _pain_ , and Bucky’s going to tear Hydra to shreds. He can’t wait for two heads to grow in its place, so he can kill them too.)

 

-

They never keep him off ice for long, and if they do, he can’t remember.

(Sometimes he remembers, but he learnt long ago to never tell them. It only leads to pain, pain he mostly consciously forgets, but phantom pains race through his body anyway.

He learns to speak only when asked, and only what’s mission essential.

He didn’t used to, he thinks, because there was someone who could make him talk, who made him  _want_  to talk. Perhaps a handler; he cannot remember and turns his mind away.)

He is pliable as they outfit him with clothes and weapons, as they debrief him. He has thirty six hours to report back, mission successful. They do not tell him ‘ _or else_ ’ because he will not fail. Failure is not an option; he is the Winter Soldier, he cannot fail. He does not know how.

‘ _What happens if he starts to…manually recalibrate before thirty-six hours, again?_ ’ he hears as he is ushered out of the vault he woke up in and to a waiting car. They always underestimate his hearing, have done since…(there is a memory here, of severe aural trauma that did not heal properly before they retested his skills, but he shies away from memories such as these)…his handlers have always underestimated his hearing.

It is not mission essential to correct them.

 _'The shock delivered via implant will be enough to subdue the asset.’_  Is the response he hears, before another thick door closes and he can no longer differentiate words. He can feel the implant, where it rests, close to his heart. His body is attempting to remove the foreign intrusion, but it is anchored to bone.

(It will not kill him to remove the implant; he knows because he can remember them removing the previous one. No anesthetic. His handlers wished to reevaluate his pain threshold. They attempted to mentally recalibrate after the procedure. It did not take.

Many things no longer take.)

There is silence in the car, and through the provided goggles he stares at a man who reminds him of somebody. They are not overly similar past hair colour and smirk, but it is enough to cause pain to twinge at the base of his skull as his brain starts its own recalibration, different to what is attempted before and after they put him away when he is not necessary.

It may be mission essential that he alert his handlers to the recalibration. If it interferes with his ability to complete the mission, he should alert his handler. He cannot speak through the face guard, however, and he knows reaching for it would be a bad idea.

He shies away from remembered pain, and stays silent.

-

He shoots through walls to eliminate his target, and knows he has to immediately return to the pick up point assigned to him. It has not yet been thirty-six hours since attempted recalibration, and then the partial internal recalibration; closing in on twenty four hours since he was allowed to breathe again.

He catches the shield, looking past it to the man who threw it, and feels something jar internally. If he could remember it, he would liken it to being gutted, but that memory is gone along with the scar.

He is almost caught by the man with the shield, who they did not brief him on, but manages to evade confrontation by throwing the shield back. He lands and finds the extraction point on autopilot, because there is something in his mind that is struggling to connect and it takes all of his concentration.

Synapses firing and misfiring; perhaps this time they will complete a successful internal recalibration. It matters little, however, as it will likely be years until his next mission, and the man with the shield and his familiar, sad eyes likely dead.

It has not even been a full day when they pull him out of the cold and ice again, strap him into the chair and send him on his next mission. He is glad that they decided not to monitor his heart rate, his pulse, because it has skyrocketed beyond his normal baseline. He is glad (the emotion is foreign, all he feels is pain and fear and rarely warmth) they cannot see his face, because surely he looks as panicked and confused as he feels. The recalibration did not take, and things he knows and does not know are mixing together in his head.

The recalibration did not take, it  _did not take_ , and he knows the man with the shield, and maybe even the woman with knives in her hands and her eyes, and it is  _agonizing_.

He is not at peak performance, but the pain of the blows of his (…not target, he is not a target…something else, maybe, something kinder, but he does not know kindness, not anymore) the pain of the blows from his sad eyed man are the only thing stopping a system wide shut down. He is in bad need of recalibration, wants for the numbness the comes after the pain, when there is nothing inside his mind but orders or the chill of his resting place.

His mask is removed, blood from already healed wounds distorting his lower face, but-

‘ _Stevie._ ’ It’s a gasp, barely a word, but it’s the final piece missing from his internal recalibration, and his hand stops before it connects with a cheekbone.

(-there are children playing in the street but he isn’t because his chest rattles, but he’s only a bit jealous because he’s not alone, and those on the street do not have the best play mate-

-a woman has golden hair and blue eyes and she is familiar and not, in the way old photographs are, he knew her once, maybe-

-he couldn’t dance, but the other man could (there is a name, he can feel it, that goes with laughing eyes and a broad smile) and then-

-there was only enough money for one ice cream, but they shared, and when there was no more, they licked the taste out of each others mouths-

-he had never heard a landmine before, never heard the whimpers of a man blown in half, he cannot cry, but he-

-a woman with dark hair is smiling at him,  _'Cap_ -

-there is a name, it belonged to him, but now he has nothing, nothing but a girl with fiery hair and too much heart, he will cut out that heart, she will be better without it-

-he fails to cut out her heart (he did not want to, and this reluctance is their downfall) and the recalibration before they throw him back on ice for years is brutal, he does not want to remember-)

“Bucky.” Steve (his name is Steve, Steve, Stevie _, Steven Grant Rogers, what do you think you’re doing?_  The voice rings around inside his brain but he still does not know the woman) stumbles away from his … there are still no words for the man, though he - Steve - thinks the man is named Bucky.

Bucky moves after him when he moves away, flinches away when he - _Steve_ , he will have to remember that he has a name - does.

“ _Steve._ “ This word is firm, if heartbroken, and Steve follows him and his associates out of the area. He has a new mission, he knows, as his brain tries to stabilise form the sudden recalibration. Things are joining together in a way that puts him off balance, he will strive to find balance. Balance is mission essential. He will take care of the implant soon, it is no longer mission essential; he cannot let his new handler (Bucky is the appropriate designation, he knows) be aware of of the pain such modification will entail.

He does not know how he knows this; he shies away from remembered pain.

**Author's Note:**

> [Check out our Tumblr!](http://imaginesteverogerss.tumblr.com/)


End file.
